CHILD PROTECTION in EMERGENCIES WORKING GROUP ...

CHILD PROTECTION in EMERGENCIES WORKING GROUP – LEBANON

Minutes of Meeting

DATE : 24 May 2013 @ 13:00 -15:00 LOCATION : MoSA Conference Room CHAIR : Natacha Emerson, CPIEWG Coordinator PARTICIPANTS: 27 participants representing 19 institutions/organisations (Arc-en-Ciel, AVSI Foundation, Caritas Lebanon Migration Centre, Danish Refugee Council, INTERSOS, Mercy Corps, Ministry of Social Affairs, Mouvement Sociale, NRC, Save the Children, SHIELD, SOS Children’s Village, SFCG, Terre des Hommes-Lausanne, Terre des Hommes-Italy, UNHCR, UNICEF, War Child Holland, World Vision)

I. Review of Action Points Update on action points:  The Lebanon Child Protection Assessment has been redrafted based on recommendations from the Steering Committee and to make it more palatable to a broader audience. Following final comments and clearance from MoSA it will be shared with CPIEWG members before sharing with other sectors and making it available on the web portal.  Unicef has received some feedback from members on the content of Early Childhood Development and Recreation kits in order to develop a standard list of items that are based on needs and cultural relevance so that every child attending a CFS will receive the same standard of service. Following further feedback from partners in the field, a proposed list of items will be presented to the CPIEWG for endorsement.  A national strategy and Action Plan to combat the worst form of Child Labour in Lebanon (2013-2016) is currently being developed by the National Committee for combatting Child Labour headed by the Ministry of Labour and supported by ILO. The strategy/action plan will be shared with CPIEWG members when finalized (June/July 2013) and taken into consideration when developing the CPIEWG strategic action plan. II. Operational Update Case Management - Two Save the Children consultants working on case management and referral pathways to support the inter-agency Child Protection response were introduced to the CPIEWG: Gisela Werner - Case Management Specialist until 15 June 2013. Gisela will be conducting a needs assessment on case management (tools, procedures and soft skills of case workers) based on discussions with agencies in the field. Gisela will also conduct a 3-days training from 12-14 June to selected case managers on case management best practices. Simon Nehme - Consultant for mapping of CP services and mentor for case managers until end-June 2013. Simon will be conducting a desk review of existing mapping of services for children and will develop a comprehensive service directory of available services for case managers in Tripoli, Akkar, Bekka and Sedal Bauchrieh, Mount Lebanon. Through this process he will also be supporting the CPIEWG Coordinators in completing the referral charts for the hubs located in these areas.

Gisela and Simon shared their initial findings with the CPIEWG based on their field visits and meetings with partners: Case management challenges - refugee children  Families not willing / unable to register (various reasons),  Detection of traumatized children (would need specialized assessment training about pathology & resilience)  Children at high risk & in need for immediate intervention  Children with multiple disabilities (physical AND mental)  Syrian-Palestinian children & their families (stigma)  Families in conflict with their new environment,  Refugee families changing locations (various reasons) Case management challenges - agencies & sectors  Case identification goes far beyond registration. Identification needs to cover vulnerability criteria for child protection.  Inter-agency agreement on prioritization of needs  Bring everybody on the same (assessment) sheet for case identification  Achieve sharing of documents & procedures applied by each agency individually, and strive for compatibility and harmonization  Improve interagency coordination on case management  Improve inter-sectoral cooperation, particularly between CP & education  Improve communication & coordination between Beirut offices and the field (across all agencies).  Strengthen Beirut support for the field level ("Beirut goes to the field for learning", rather than "Beirut management is on top of everything")  Strengthen capacity of case managers Challenges identified on the field by case workers:  Many questionnaires to fill, most of them are very long;  Huge load of cases in need for assessment;  Difficulty of following up with cases due to fast and constant mobility of refugees and due to logistic limitations;  Unclear framework of intervention of child protection case managers;  Work load and responsibilities;  Absence of knowledge and information on the national response related to child protection both social and legal.  Absence of expertise related to child protection for some case workers;  Limited contractual period and constant role over of case managers;  Limited identification of child protection cases mechanism. Recommendations ·

Improve the national referral path way for child protection;

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Develop standard guidelines on case management during humanitarian response and emergencies in Lebanon;

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Develop a clear child protection response plan in case of mass influx of refugees;

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Improve coordinated response mechanism between the different actors;

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Improve the capacity of case management staff – emergency knowledge and skills in identifying and referring most at risk children and relate the work they are doing to enhancing the well-being of children and their protection;

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Develop criteria to prioritise which cases to be managed

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Improve reporting mechanism;

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Organize caring for carers sessions.

It was announced that MOSA with the support of the University of Saint Joseph and Unicef are in the process of developing CM tools and SOPs to strengthen CP systems in Lebanon. The tools will be piloted and tested in June. The CPIEWG requested to provide input into the development of tools to ensure that they integrated the emergency response component. To this end, members were asked to support the testing of the tools in the emergency context. Security – due to the deterioration in the security situation in Whadi Khaled and Tripoli, some organisations have had to suspend their activities including War Child Holland, Hermel Cultural Association and International Rescue Committee and multiple organisations operating in the North are not permitted to go on missions or attend meetings in the North. INTERSOS closed their CFS in the South on the day of funeral processions of Hezbollah fighters. Due to cross-border shelling, several Syrian refugee children have been physically harmed (in Helwas and Kalkha, Whadi Khaled) but are receiving proper access to medical services. III. Unaccompanied and Separated Children Yasmeen Abdallah – A SCI Unaccompanied and Separated Children Specialist will be in Lebanon for 2 months to strengthen the response to unaccompanied and separated children including the development of UASC SOPs and the establishment of alternative care measures for UASC children in Lebanon. In the coming weeks, Yasmeen will be travelling to the field and meeting with members working on UASC. The establishment of a UASC Task Force was suggested to discuss, agree and move forward on processes and procedures related to UASC. (NB. Following CPIEWG meeting it was decided by co-leads to incorporate UASC work into a broader case management technical working group). IV. Remote Syria CP Rapid Assessment (Presentation) The Remote Syria CP Rapid Assessment in Lebanon was carried out from 15 April to 13 May 2013. The CPIEWG expressed thanks to the seven agencies (Caritas, Mercy Corps, SCI, UNHCR, Unicef and World Vision) and 18 surveyors who participated in the assessment. 235 Syrian Refugees, located in Bekaa and North Lebanon, were interviewed. See attached debrief given to CPIEWG members. Some initial trends reported include many separated children, many children in detention, increase in sexual violence, no/few services to help survivors of sexual violence, no/limited capacity to organize recreational and/or educational activities for children.

V. Mapping Thanks to the 13 organisations that have filled out the 4Ws activity matrix. We are still awaiting contributions from the remainder of members. The 4Ws captures information on the mapping of CPIEWG member’s activities and will be used as a CPIEWG reporting tool. It is an entirely different tool to the mapping of services for the purpose of

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referral pathways that is currently being undertaken in the field and with the assistance of SCI consultant Simon Nehme (see above). Members requested that an inter-sectorial service mapping would also be useful.

With the support of the global CPWG Information Management Officer a 2 page analysis document was developed based on member’s 4W submissions, with maps on number of organisations per response domain, number of target beneficiaries per organisation. The map will be posted on the UNHCR web portal. Members requested for nd rd mapping of agencies and activities for key 2 or 3 level administrative areas (eg. Tripoli, Akkar). VI. AoB Training Survey - Given that various members have received concerns regarding the need to improve capacity of CP actors responding to the Syrian Crisis, the CPIEWG has developed a web-based training survey to identify the specific capacity building needs of actors working in child protection (at all levels) and training expertise amongst members of the CPIEWG. The survey will be sent around in the coming weeks and members are encouraged to complete the survey as well as circulate and encourage their colleagues working on CP to also fill it out. Unicef and Save the Children PSS/CFS Training – An inter-agency training on Child Friendly Spaces will be held at the Crown Plaza Hotel from 27th-31st May inclusive. Experienced trainers from the global child protection working group will be joining to roll out this training as part of a longer term capacity building initiative for child protection actors in the region. Please contact Catherine Jones/ UNICEF at [email protected] for more details. Bekaa CPIEWG – will be held in Zahle @ UNHCR office on Tuesday, 28 May @ 10am North Lebanon CPIEWG – due to insecurity this week’s meeting has been postponed to Thursday, 30 May in the UNHCR Tripoli Office nd

Next meeting: 14 June 2013 (2 Friday of month) @ 13h00 at MOSA

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ACTION POINTS

ACTION

BY WHO

BY WHEN

COMMENTS

Share Lebanon CP Assessment

Natacha

14 June

Awaiting clearance from co-leads

Put MoSA Regional Coordinators in contact with CPIEWG field coordinators

Natacha & Makram

01 June

North Lebanon coordinator

Share national strategy and action plan on Combatting worst forms of Child Labour with CPIEWG members once finalised

Abir/UNICEF

July

Document still in draft form. Some members of CPIEWG on national committee

Establishment of case management technical WG (including UASC) to followup on CM recommendations and support UASC consultant

Elsa/UNHCR

10 June

Following discussions with co-leads and SCI (responsible for 3 CM/UASC consultants)

Identify hubs and fill in referral charts

Field-based Coordinators

ASAP

Bekaa referral charts completed; NL in progress. Simon (SCI consultant to support field coordinators)

Finalise TORs, structure, communication lines

Co-leads & Natacha

ASAP

Meetings with MOSA, UNICEF & UNHCR

Fill in Capacity Building needs survey – send and share with staff and partners working in Child Protection.

Members

23 June

Natacha to send out survey monkey link

CPIEWG to support and provide input into the development of MOSA/USJ case management tools to adapt to emergency response context.

Abir/UNICEF to link CPIEWG to USJ

June

Explore opportunity for CPIEWG/Case Management Technical WG to input into tools/SOPs

CM consultant to meet with USJ consultant to discuss case management tools with the purpose of broader harmonization of CM SOPs

Abir/UNICEF and Giselle/SCI

05 June

Capacity Building initiatives on Child Protection monitoring – identification of cases

CPIEWG Coordinators

July

To incorporate into CP capacity building plan

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